Privacy means different things to different people.
Are you trying to change the view from inside your house or from your garden?
Are you trying to block the view of your house or yard from your neighbors?
These are two very different situations.

What size planting area are you talking about? Re plants -how big is large?

Do you hope to sell your house right away? Because whatever you plant now will stay that size until spring, and maybe another year or more. So if you want 'large' now, you'll have to buy 'large'. Or, perhaps a row of young shrubs and trees with the PROMISE of privacy would be enough.

It is sometimes easier to distract the eye (with color) than to try to hide something large.

Daphne in Tacoma

This is an interesting question. There are all sorts of plants that could be suggested to provide privacy screening, but as Daphne notes, you'll need to purchase large specimens if you want an immediate effect. And a question can be raised as to the value of making substantial landscaping changes just to sell the house - landscape choices tend to be very personal and are often redone or replaced when a home changes hands. It is most often suggested that landscaping alterations to sell the home be primarily cosmetic unless you plan far enough in advance to have the plantings appear mature. 3 years is often the time frame suggested.

Personally, I have a very hard time justifying the expense of going through all sorts of upgrades just to sell a house when the new owners are just as likely to go through and redo everything to their tastes anyway. But with the housing market the way it is, there may be some merit to this if you want the house to move quickly and at a good price. FWIW, winter is the least successful time of year to sell a house - spring and summer will generate much more activity if you have the luxury of delaying until then.

Non-dwarf kinds of ceanothus and escallonia develop rapidly, as well as Pacific wax myrtle. You may still be able to find some of these around in fairly large sizes. If unloading the place turns out to take a year or so these are all evergreen kinds that will grow taller comparatively quickly.

Italian cypress is great for a tall narrow evergreen hedge, as in over 20ft tall but only a few feet wide. But, as has been said, it won't do anything for you right away. Leyland cypress is very very fast growing evergreen screen, but it grows about as wide as tall, roughly 15ft.

I too doubt that planting a hedge right now is your best answer. Perhaps just a tree or two or three, to distract the eye and provide some definition and spatial boundary.

Winter is a fine time to plant shrubs and trees, but for the long term health of the plants, not for immediate impact.

In time those two get much bigger than that. A columnar Italian cypress in Seattle was 42' tall with an average crown spread of 6' in 1988; Leyland cypresses measured in Lakewood and Seattle 1989-1993 had heights of 69'-80' and average crown spreads of 33'-40' by that time. It's just a matter of what term is being planned for by the party planting them, and what impact they may have on their surroundings, should they still be there later - and big. An 80' x 40' Leyland cypress (one in Seattle had achieved both this height and spread combined, by 1993) has a pretty big impact, completely overwhelming an average non-rural building lot.

Not only do they overwelm the lot, but they are unfair to the neighbors, both in shade and roots.